Tdap

Tdap, Tdap... Tdap, Tdap, Tdap... Tdap, Tdaaaaaaaaaaaap. TDAP.

Don't know why, but that's what happens when I think "Tdap" in my head. It becomes Pink Panther theme music.

If you do not know what a Tdap is, then FOR SHAME. Get thyself to thine doctor (or reasonable facsimile thereof) pronto and get it. It's a shot. Yes, it'll hurt. Ya big baby.

My niece, Chelle-Belle, was very, very sick recently. Thankfully, she was home from college for the weekend, so her parents were able to get her to our local ER very late one evening. Her struggle to breathe was painful in many ways... painful for Chelle and painful for my sister and brother-in-law to watch. Michelle did not have pneumonia; a day later it was confirmed she had Whooping Cough.

Michelle received a medical checkup and the shots required before she began her first college semester, including a Tetanus shot. But for some reason, though I believe the Tdap shot was available back then, Chelle got only the T. (Michelle is in her final semester of her 4-year college program, pre-med.) Tdap is Tetanus, Diphtheria and Pertussis. We all greatly wish she had received the "p" along with the "T", and what the hell, the "d" too for that matter. She has it all now.

Pertussis, aka Whooping Cough, is extremely contagious. Since it's now been discovered for young adults, and us old adults, that the vaccinations we received as children have worn off, we all need to be sure to get re-vaccinated with the Tdap shot. Unfortunately, many parents are recently deciding not to vaccinate their children. So between these 2 factors, Whooping Cough is on the rise in the U.S.

Dreadful.

I say "unfortunately" because I am pro-vaccination. And yes, I know this is a big ol' can of worms (I listened to the Momversation on it recently). I'm totally Old School. Shoot 'em up, baby. Coz I agree with 2 statements on that Momversation: 1) Vaccinations are one of the best medical breakthroughs of our generation, of recent generations, and 2) parents who decide not to vaccinate their children are relying upon the rest of us who do... otherwise, we would be back in epidemic city Big Time on many diseases. Also, I have a niece, Sara, who teaches Special Education, and Sara is certified in MI, MR & Autism (MI is mental illness and MR is mental retardation - I think, though I'm not sure if that is still politically correct). I have such awe of Sara, choosing that profession; I am so proud of her. I talked with Sara not too long ago about the relationship that seems to be made between vaccinations and autism. She explained one thing I hadn't thought about, which was that years ago, children were not diagnosed as autistic where they would be diagnosed as such now... it is not so much a situation of an increase in autism as an increase in diagnoses of autism.

I am not saying there are no risks associated with vaccinations, because of course there are risks. But, I believe that vaccinations have allowed my children to be free of the danger of many diseases that plagued children of my father and mother's generation and the generations before them.

Right before Michelle became so sick she had to be taken to ER, I got to visit with her, and since we're such a huggy/kissy family, I was hugging and kissing her. Thankfully, last May when my physician checked me out from attic to basement, I got the Tdap shot. I have no recollection of that, so I had a scary bit of hours between learning I was exposed and learning I was vaccinated. Whew. I wasn't up to another round of any kind of antibiotics.

Also thankfully, Kevin just got a Tdap shot at work at his recent physical. Kev has to undergo a very thorough annual exam due to his new job at work, and the Tdap shot was not optional; get it or don't keep the job. Not that he wouldn't want it. And even more special for Kev was that his employer provided it, made the pain on his shoulder for the next 4 days that much more bearable... at least he didn't have to pay actual money for the shot. (Kev can be so cheap!) Joycie and Sammy also have had the Tdap shot within the past 2 years, so we are all good. But our Mike needs his Tdap shot, which he will get pronto. He needs the Tetanus anyway, because of the job he has now, where he works around older homes and buildings.

Remember: Renew your Tdap shot every ten years.

Lists and research

Some things I cannot do without:

• Coffee - I've been trying to cut down to 2 cups per day (always first thing in the morning), but I cannot. I can give up a lot of things, and I thought an excess of coffee was one of them, but sadly... it is not.


• Vicodin and valium


• Text messages from my kids


• Kisses goodbye from Kev


• Advice from my Mom & Dad


• TV & the big, green recliner


• Lists... to do lists, grocery lists, recipes to look up online lists, books to read lists, pottery ideas lists


• Time at Space Studios


• Spectacles... my eyesight sucks now, well, really I should say it sucks more now


• My memory foam pillow

Some things I would love to rid from my life:

• Lists


• Vicodin and valium


• Stress from a certain person at work


• Some particular procrastination


• Excessive salt


• Certain hair follicles, skin tags, and other unsightly sights... seriously I am so getting old


• My obsession lately with MegaMillions and Classic Lotto 47... coz I truly believe it ain't gonna work, no matter how many prayers I send out, which belief I believe jinx my prayers, so it's doomed, right?... get it?...*sigh*


• My focus on a coworker's use of "y'all" so often... seriously, now that I've noticed how often he uses it, I can't stop listening for it, and it's kinda driving me nuts... yesterday on a phone call, he used it like 5 times in 2 minutes and it made me batty... not him using it, my listening for it... get over it already, self...


• Chipmunks at my bird feeder

Whirling Dervish

I have been hearing 'whirling dervish' a lot lately. It's kinda weird. Sammy didn't know what it was, so I tried to explain it to him. I remember the first time I really looked into what a whirling dervish was... I read it in one of the "Mrs. Pollifax" books (the Reader's Digest Condensed version) and I looked it up. I heard it recently on the new TV show, "The Ex List" (great show by the way!). With my vertigo thing happening, I find myself thinking of it... and telling myself STOP! because it does not help to think of that.

If you do a 'net search, you'll get tons of hits. It's a very religious thing, but has now also become a tourist attraction. Kinda sad, that. But maybe not. After all, what's the biggest tourist attraction in Italy? Um, yeah, the Pope. Makin' money from religion ain't no new thang.

Dervish whirl, that is, spin in place, slowly at first, then increasing in speed, to achieve some kind of spiritual high or state of mind beyond their bodies or something like that.

I can hardly stand to even think of doing that. No thank you. However, I do like to say it... Whirling Dervish, whirling dervish...

Ankh

Remember when these necklaces were so popular?

Oh, wait, they still are...

I had one back in the 70's... like the peace sign, it was mostly just fashionable to me and my friends. We were alive in the 60's but didn't live through it like some people to whom the peace sign is much more important. Like the ankh, which was not originally a Christian symbol.... apparently, there is some debate on what it truly represents. But like many pagan items, rituals and dates, the Christians took them over and own 'em now.

I also heard "ankh" on the TV show, "The Ex List." Which got me thinking... those characters are pretty young... they just seem too young to me to be mentioning things like "whirling dervish" and "ankh"... but the writers are Rick Eid and Matt McGuinness, and I don't think they're very young... but quickly finding info on Eid or the other guy was kinda difficult... and I just don't care that much to spend any more time on it. But I suspect they're both around my age or so, i.e., old.

Beach glass

My sister, Kathy, and my niece, Michelle, just returned from a "mom-and-daughter" vacation in Florida, where it was mostly warm and sunny and beautiful. They did a lot of beach walking, and I asked Kathy if they found any beach glass. That's my big interest when I walk the beaches... I don't care much about the shells... I like the beach glass, and also the perfectly round or oval stones. Since I don't live near any beach, and lately haven't traveled near any beach, my collection of beach glass is pretty slim.

Somewhere I once heard that beach glass is called "mermaid tears"... and doesn't that sound lovely? But then I did a little bit of 'net research and discovered that mermaid tears are also known as nurdles, and they are actually small pieces of plastic pollution on beaches.

Anyway, I like the term, "beach glass" because that's how I've always known it. Here's a link to an article on it in Wikipedia. I was looking at some beach glass jewelry recently on Etsy.com, and I wondered about if my rock tumbler could make a good replica of beach glass... apparently fake beach glass abounds for tourists to buy at beachside shops.

I've always thought of looking for beach glass along the ocean shorelines, but then I found this store on Etsy, Lake Erie Beach Glass. And if you think about it, of course Lake Erie would have all kinds of beach glass... it used to be so polluted, there could be an unending supply of beach glass from that lake. One thing I had not thought of is old pottery pieces worn smooth like beach glass. Some of the pieces this Etsy shop uses for jewelry are beautiful, like these blue and white pottery pieces.

I think that set is so pretty, old-fashioned pottery made into something unique and interesting and new. I also like this brown pottery piece made into a pendant... though I think I'd like it better without the curly silver at the top. I like the color.

You'll just have to check out this Etsy shop; there are a lot of beautiful pieces there... bracelets, rings, and even miniature art. I do like the traditional beach glass jewelry pieces the best, like this one, too...

There are other sellers on Etsy from the Great Lakes doing some beautiful things, like this driftwood and beach glass photo frame, and this shop.

Makes me want to plan a few weekends this summer along the lake shores. That's one thing about living in the "middle of the mitten," Lake Michigan and Lake Huron aren't too far away. Lake Superior is definitely more of a stretch, and Lake Erie is, in my experience, very crowded. I was talking with Joycie's boyfriend, Mike, about beach glass, and he said that the state park beach near Bay City (where he lives) has been being cleaned up a lot, and they have found beach glass there.

Things to look forward to this spring and summer, when I'm no longer under "house arrest" (as I fondly refer to this medical home-bound requirement) and I can look down while I walk!

Maybe someday…

Photo Friday’s ‘Art’ challenge continues to keep me happily occupied. This entry from “Barcelona Photoblog” really caught my interest. You really should click on that link to see the beautiful photo there. I also found this photo by Montrealais on Wikimedia Commons:



This is a photo of the stained glass skylight inside the concert hall of the Palau de la Música Catalana in Becelona, Spain. Isn’t it gorgeous? I found more information on this structure on Wikipedia...

     --The Palau de la Música Catalana (Palace of Catalan Music) is a concert hall in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

     --Built between 1905 and 1908; inaugurated February 9 1908

     --The concert hall of the Palau, which seats about 2,200 people, is the only auditorium in Europe that is illuminated during daylight hours entirely by natural light. The walls on two sides consist primarily of stained-glass panes set in magnificent arches, and overhead is an enormous skylight of stained glass designed by Antoni Rigalt whose centerpiece is an inverted dome in shades of gold surrounded by blue that suggests the sun and the sky.

And here is a link to the concert hall’s official web site, though it didn’t help me much since I don’t speak Spanish.

I just love that skylight, and I like the description of how it “suggests the sun and the sky.” Beautiful. I'd love to maybe see it in person someday.

I couldn’t find very much information on Antoni Rigalt, except his full name I think is Antoni Rigalt i Blanch, and he was from Barcelona, born in 1861 & died 1914 at age 53. So when the Palau de la Música Catalana was finally finished and inaugurated on February 9, 1908, Antoni was about 47 years old.

I found some more absolutely stunning photos on another web site, a blog called “Mosaic Art Source.” This blog has many, many beautiful structures photographed.

Another inspiration

Here's another interesting link from the Photo Friday 'Art' challenge... this one by "Pfluegl's photostream" on Flickr, & it's called "Kollage". Take a look; it's cool.

So I decided to play with .jpg files, & being inspired by "Kollage"... here's my Toad Collage:



And since I spent so much time fiddling around with a photo of a toad (a photo that Sammy took last August), I started doing some toad research on the 'net just for fun. I discovered the "toad-in-the-hole" fascination that reached a peak in Great Britain in the mid 1800's. Toad-in-the-hole is the supposition that a toad can live inside of a rock or tree or whatever for years... and that several were found, for example, by workman cutting limestone or sandstone. Here's a long, but interesting, article about it from Fortean Times UK. It's kinda freaky. But the article states that this toad discovery was still occurring as late as 1980. This toad-in-the-hole is also known as the Entombed Toad Phenomenon. This weirdness isn't limited to toads; it seems frogs are included also... and it may possibly be true. In any case, there's a ton of info on the 'net for it... Google hits for
     toad in the hole - about 145,000
     Entombed Toad Phenomenon - about 17,200
     frogs in stones - about 531,000
That'll keep ya busy, eh.

Also interesting, Toad in the Hole is a traditional British dish, pub game, and British pub located in California, of course (though I don't see "Toad in the Hole" on their menu).

If you follow the link to the dish (on Wikipedia) above, there's a link to the recipe. The instructions, or "method," given in the recipe ends with this:

     Race the dish to the table immediately
     it is taken from the oven, while it is
     puffy and crisp; cut out each sausage
     in a frame of batter.

Race, race! the dish... you can't make this stuff up, y'know...

I can see for miles and miles

I loves me a challenge, & the challenge of trying to find something on the Internet is a type of research I can really enjoy. Especially now since we have high speed 'net instead of ye olde dial up. And also especially when many of my waking hours are spent in a chair keeping my head still... So here I am, Detective JT, at your service...

I kept thinking about Darren's chili recipe that I mentioned in this post. I remembered it was something called his hometown name chili, and I was certain it was a city in Ohio, like Columbus Chili or Cincinnati Chili or Cleveland Chili... so I did a Google image search on Ohio chili. Which led me to a blog called Not Eating Out in NY and gave me the answer: Cincinnati Chili! Not just chili, The Famous Cincinnati Chili.

Side Note: My link above to the blog, Not Eating Out in NY, doesn't necessarily mean I'm recommending it to you, but only because I haven't read much of it yet... I was quite excited to find what I was trying to remember (Cincinnati chili) that I moved on to my continued research for Darren's recipe. But this blog looks very interesting, and I am looking forward to perusing it further. And, hey, anyone who quotes Thoreau in their about me bit on their blog gets good points in my book. I also really like her blog layout.

So, back to my research. I found some cached pages on Google searches. Then, thanks to a handy little thing called the “Internet Archive Wayback Machine,” I finally found Darren’s Cincinnati Chili recipe. Yay!

You can see the complete, original post, text only, here and the post title is, "Onions... Chili Powder... Cumin... Juicy Ground Chuck? It's Chili!"; though no photos. (If that link doesn't work for you, try this one and click on the January 26, 2007 link there.)

It’s worth the read, because as I’ve said, he’s a talented writer.

This is an excerpt from his post; you should check out the Camp Washington Chili web site he recommends.

I should tell you, though, that what you’re about to make is really only a homemade approximation of Cincinnati chili. For the real thing, you’ll have to go to the city this chili hails from and order it from a place called Camp Washington Chili. Don’t waste your time with Skyline or Gold Star.

Side Note: Not Eating Out in NY would seem to agree with Darren's opinion on Skyline. Interesting, eh.

So here is Darren's recipe for Cincinnati Chili...

Ingredients:
1 ½ lbs. ground beef
2 11 oz. cans dark red kidney beans
1 cup chopped onion
1 clove minced garlic
3 bay leaves (remove before serving)
1 tbsp. white vinegar
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. honey
1 tbsp. un-sweetened cocoa powder
1 tbsp. chili powder
½ tsp. ground cumin
½ tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. all spice
½ tsp. cardamom
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper

Brown the ground beef and drain. If you want to be a purest and get the ground beef as finely ground as possible, put it in a food processor or a blender for a few seconds after you’ve drained it. Put everything into your crock-pot and stir it up. Simmer on low heat for five to seven hours, stirring thoroughly once every hour. Good luck staying out of it because, jeeze Louise, your whole house is going to smell like heaven for the rest of the afternoon. Serve over well cooked spaghetti noodles, top with a mound of finely shredded cheddar cheese, and then smother that mo-fo in some sort of cayenne hot sauce, preferably Frank’s. What you end up with will look like this:

[Note: this is not Darren’s photo.]


A word about the plates. You can, I suppose, eat Cincinnati chili on a regular round plate. However, if you want to eat this dish the way God intended, you’ll serve the chili on eleven and a half inch white oval platters.

I ordered mine from Fishs Eddy.

I did some half-hearted research on white oval platters like the one Darren got at Fishs Eddy, and truly, I think he got a good deal on them at about six bucks each. When I make Darren's recipe, we will be eating this chili on our usual everyday plates, however, because as much as I would really like to order some of those platters (me want!), CMU keeps wanting our money (we just recently paid Joycie's Spring semester tuition and books bill... ouch; though to her credit, Joycie's scholarships have helped).

I had mentioned I got the tip about using a potato masher while browning ground beef to make it fine from Darren's post, and I don't see that suggestion in the text... maybe it was in the comments, or perhaps in a different post. I stick to my original credit to Darren, though. Coz it works really well, and I'm stubborn that way.

Fulgurite

Have you ever tried to find information about a specific thing on the Internet and couldn’t? Yeah, me neither...

Ha! Not true. I recently tried to find out a few things, and I came up with nothing.

For example, on the TV show, CSI, when they go into a house or building of any kind to search it, they all take their flashlights in with them, and they use the flashlights instead of turning on the lights. Why do they do this? I’m pretty sure the answer can be found somewhere out there on the Internet, but I couldn’t find it. Gotta ask the right questions, y’know. Meanwhile, my family is getting tired of me telling the TV to just turn on the lightswitch, dumbass.

Also, on the new sitcom, The Big Bang Theory, which I think is totally hilarious, I know that the guy who plays Leonard, actor Johnny Galecki, was on the show Roseanne years ago. (Also, Sara Gilbert is on this show, & she was Darlene on Roseanne.) On one episode on The Big Bang Theory, Leonard is wearing a robe that looks so familiar to me... I think it’s a robe like one he wore on Roseanne. I’ve searched the Great and Wonderful Internet, but nada.

So, yeah, sometimes I search for useless crap information on the Internet and am disappointed. But probably not as disappointed entertained as I am at the useless crap information I do find.

So anyway...

After watching the movie, Sweet Home Alabama, for the fifth or twenty-first time or so (we likes us that movie - if you haven't seen it yet, get out from under your rock and rent it, heck, just buy it!), I got wondering about those gorgeous glass sculptures made from lightning hitting the sand... aka, fulgerites. So I did an Interent search for them...

Google: Results 1 - 10 of about 39,900 for fulgurite
Yahoo!: 1-10 of 44,800 for fulgurite

Lots and lots of info on fulgerite. Whoever wrote that bit about fulgurites in the movie must have known diddley-squat about fulgurites, because I believe there is no way to romanticize these:





Not attractive. Very, very interesting. But not attractive. Well, not attractive in the way this is...



This is a photo I took of the scene in the Sweet Home Alabama movie, where Melanie discovers Jake’s glass business... and wouldn’t you just love to own every piece of glass featured in that showroom... So I wondered who made all those beautiful glass pieces? I asked the Internet and found Simon Pearce. I love this. And these, too. Oh, and these, and these. If I win the lottery...

I'm asking you, the Internets...

A friend of mine told me via e-mail today that he and his daughter are going to visit Boston to look at universities there. During my e-mail back to him, I recalled a visit to Boston... Back in about 1998, give or take, Kev, Joycie & I were in Boston, and we visited the Museum of Fine Arts. One of my favorite museum visits ever.

While there, we stood in a long line to go through a room and view this special display. It doesn't appear on the MFA's web site listing of past exhibitions, so maybe it wasn't classified as an "exhibit" but... there was definitely a line.

The pieces were paintings on sheets of glass, and the glass was set with the edges facing outward, all in a row. Think dominoes. On one of the pieces of this artwork, when you looked at it one way, it was a scene of a school of fish, and if you looked at it from a different angle, it appeared as a reclining woman.

At least that is the best of my recollection. I would have liked to take a photo of it, but no photos were allowed back then... that was before the days of digital photography.

I remember clearly, though, how beautiful it was. I think there was more than one piece, but I remember the fish/woman. I wanted to look longer at it, but the line had to keep moving. Then I wanted to get back in line, but Kev and Joycie were not so inclined.

Off and on through the years, I've tried to search for it on the Internet, but no success.

Does anyone out there know what artwork &/or artist I've described? If you do, please comment.

It may have been 1997 or 1999, or heck, 1996 or 2000... I truly can't remember. I could try to find our photos from the trip, but I'm not sure what box to start looking in... ugh. So I called Joycie just now, and I asked her if she remembered what grade she was in when we visited Boston. She couldn't remember, and I don't think she remembers much about the MFA, either. I told my friend today that Joycie's favorite thing in Boston was the Finagle a Bagel just down the street from our hotel. She loved that place. She wants one here in Michigan. On the phone just now, when she told me she had no idea what grade she was in then, she said, "all I remember about Boston was the Finagle a Bagel." I knew that.

Light Research Day

Some questions have come up recently that made me stop and go hmmm... I wonder... So in observation of my 47th birthday today, I’ve decided to feed my brain a little bit.


Question 1: Why is that adorable little bird called a titmouse?

May I just say, Holy Cow! There is an incredible amount of information on the ’net about common names of birds. For those of you with high speed Internet access, I declare myself envious. I struggled through some of the info with my dial-up-access of slowly loading pages, and I found some very interesting reading. For example, I discovered that throughout history, common names of birds have changed dramatically. For one thing, increased scientific knowledge of birds has contributed to that. Also, common bird names are like everything else with a nickname... in the U.S. we call it a john, in the U.K. it’s a loo... whatever, it’s the room where the toilet sits. But as how that relates to common bird names, well, I never really thought about them as nicknames... they vary greatly depending on where you are geographically, for example, as many as 3 names or more for the same bird in the same region of the U.S.

So anyway, I searched and searched for why is a titmouse called a titmouse. Ugh. Good luck with that. I finally just looked up titmouse on dictionary.com, and found this information:

[Origin: 1275–1325; ME tit(e)mose (see TIT1); mose, OE māse titmouse; c. G Meise titmouse, ON meis- in meisingr kind of bird; modern mouse by folk etym. ]

[Alteration (influenced by mous, mouse) of Middle English titmose : tit- (probably from Old Norse tittr, titmouse) + mose, titmouse (from Old English māse, titmouse).]

"small, active bird," c.1325, titmose, from tit (2) (expressing something small) + O.E. mase "titmouse," from P.Gmc. *maison (cf. Du. mees, Ger. meise), from adj. *maisa- "little, tiny." Spelling infl. 16c. by unrelated mouse.

Answer: A titmouse has been called a titmouse for centuries, and it basicallly is called that because it is a small bird... tit for small and mouse likely from a word that meant bird.



Question 2: Why do birds puff themselves up in the fatso pose?

Answer: To keep warm.

All the fatso posing made me actually look this one up... So much information on puffing up of birds! Like this article from the Vineyard Gazette:

“Birds puff up in cold weather because they are lifting their feathers and allowing air in between their bodies and the feathers. The wider layer produced by this activity increases insulation and provides extra warmth for our feathered friends.”

And also this information from the WATERSHEDS web site:

“Some birds puff themselves up as they wait for their turn at backyard feeders. Puffing is a warming mechanism. Because birds control the position of their feathers through muscular movements, they create and trap larger pockets of warm air near their skin, enhancing insulation.”

Great site, by the way... very much worth a look.



Question 3: What does a female blue jay look like?

Yet another bird question. This question arose during a conversation with my niece, Michelle, the other evening. So what does a female blue jay look like?

In all my years of seeing blue jays, those ultra colorful blue, white and black striking birds, I never really thought of the female. I know that in many birds, when the male is super colorful, the female may be of muted coloring... take,for example, the cardinal. So what about the blue jays... does the guy have a more fancy dress than the gal?

Answer: The female looks identical to the male.

I got my answer from a very impressive, very thorough article on blue jays provided by Bill Hilton Jr.: “Blue Jays are "sexually monomorphic," with males and females looking exactly alike to human observers.”

p.s. The male and female black-capped chickadees also look identical.



Question 4: Do snakes poop?

This question also comes from more conversation with my niece... something she thought of during a particularly boring moment in class & told me about... and it made me wonder, too.

Answer: Yes, they do.

The answer from Ken Burton, Wildlife Expert on enature.com: “All animals excrete wastes. Only mammals separate their liquid and solid wastes; reptile (and bird) droppings contain both feces and urates, which are often whitish or yellowish and look chalky when dry. Snake droppings have been likened to twisted cat poop the color of bird droppings, smelly and often with clumps of hair in them. Appetizing, no?”
And p.s., it’s worth going to the link, because there’s a photo & Ken is a cutie.



Question 5: Is wikipedia reliable?

Answer: Yes, no, maybe, sometimes.

This question came up recently when I was at the high school to see my nephew’s Forensics oratory competition delivery. Beforehand, my sister, Kathy, and I were talking with the teacher that is the high school Forensics Team advisor, and I think I mentioned reading about something on widipedia... during the ensuing conversation I learned that our high school blocks Internet access to wikipedia because it is considered by those in our school district given the responsibility of such decisions to be unreliable. As an example, the teacher herself had submitted a completely false article, and waited to see what would happen. Her experiment proved to her that one cannot rely upon wikipedia, because as far as she knows, to this day, the easily-identified-as-false information she provided is still there. I applaud her experiment. As a teacher, she took that extra step to discover the truth for herself... and thus, for her students. She rocks.

And though that information was truly enough for me, I did a little research anyway. For shits and giggles as my sister would say. I was interested to see an article in wikipedia on it’s own reliability.

And though I totally missed the big wikipedia faux pas back when it occurred, there is still plenty of web pages out there on it... like this article in The New York Times by Katharine Q. Seelye, published on 12/04/2005, “Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar”.

An excellent article, as one would expect from nytimes.com, with my favorite sentence written by Ms. Seelye being this one: “Still, the question of Wikipedia, as of so much of what you find online, is: Can you trust it?”

To quote another pretty good writer: ay, there's the rub.



And this concludes my titprobe on the world wide web.

Do you like my new word? Tit for small & probe for research. I am so going to use this word often! And I can’t wait to see this change:
From Google: Your search - titprobe - did not match any documents.
From Yahoo!: We did not find results for: titprobe. Try the suggestions below or type a new query above.

Rhemes aplenty

I learned something new today. A new word... yay! Another word for 'comment' is rheme. So when you say you're gonna ream (or is it reem) someone out, you're really just commenting on their behavior... interesting.

Also interesting were the synonyms I found in thesaurus.com:
Definition: opinion
noun
animadversion, annotation, backtalk*, buzz*, comeback*, commentary, crack*, criticism, dictum, discussion, editorial, elucidation, exposition, footnote, gloss, hearsay, illustration, input, judgment, mention, mouthful, note, obiter, observation, opinion, remark, report, review, wisecrack*
verb
affirm, animadvert, annotate, assert, bring out, clarify, commentate, conclude,vconstrue, criticize, disclose, elucidate, explain, explicate, expound, express, gloss, illustrate, interject, interpose, interpret, mention, note, observe, opine, pass on, point out, pronounce, reflect, remark, say, state, touch upon
* = informal or slang

Now I'm thinking of changing my 'post a comment' to 'post your crack'... But... as my son's rheme to his sister recently so wisely observed, as she was bending over to pick something up, "Hey, Joycie, don't you know that crack kills?"...

Anyway, I mentioned 'Dept. of Nance' in a recent post (Nance isn't a NaBloPoMo participant, but her blog is very entertaining... so check it out), and I got a comment back from her... which made me realize how little I comment on those blogs I read on a regular basis. So that's my new thang... I hereby declare myself a commenter. This morning, while working my way through a pot of coffee in my quiet house, I read some of my usual blogs and I commented! Like 5 times. Yay, me. Breaking out of my lurking shell and commenting aplenty.

Confidential to Gus (gee, I feel all Dear Abby-ish), where the hell did the neighborhood go??? *sniff*